Many of us desire a shape or form of eternal youth. No matter how people might make musings out of death, it’s human nature to want to sustain life for as long as possible, especially when death tries to take someone before his time. 

In Kyle Mills’ “The Immortalists,” microbiologist Richard Draman is desperately seeking a cure for Progeria, a genetic defect that causes rapid aging. His daughter Susie suffers from the defect, and at the beginning of the novel the reader gets a glimpse of his vain attempts to obtain funding for a disease that only a handful of people suffer from.

Draman’s obsession to preserve his daughter’s life quickly becomes a fight to save his own after he stumbles into a web of conspiracies involving secret research that could potentially cure his daughter and wipe out all genetic diseases. However, Draman realizes that there’s someone else who has this information and this someone will do anything to hide it. 

Not surprisingly, Kyle Mills’ father was an FBI agent and “The Immortalists” certainly does reflect the childhood adventures that Mills must have had growing up. His newest thriller follows almost a dozen other books he has written including “Rising Phoenix,” “Smoke Screen” and “Darkness Falls.” 

The book most definitely takes the reader into the action very quickly. Mills doesn’t dawdle and it can be somewhat risky because he asks the reader to believe him and his characters right away. However, once the reader gets over the initial shock, Mills charms with every word. 

The author is no doubt a writer who is not only well versed in his genre, but has a great ability to steal the reader from reality. Page after page of “The Immortalists” overflows with conspiracies and thrills that tempt the reader’s eyes to skip over useless conjunctions and participles to get straight to the action. 

However, Mills stumbles when it comes to predictability. It isn’t that “The Immortalists” isn’t exciting or nail- biting, because it certainly is. Mills creates a very smooth domino of thrilling scenes, but the aching problem is that some of it is very thinly veiled and makes the reader wish that the beautiful set up didn’t lead to such a predictable outcome. The same sentiment can be expressed for the ending of the book as well. 

Overall, “The Immortalists” is a great read for anyone who enjoys a good conspiracy. Even though some parts are fairly predictable, one can turn a blind eye considering how gracefully written the book is. 

 

Reach Judy here